Unibudy

1. What is your company’s product/service?
Unibudy is a student network that bridges the informational gap between high school and university by connecting applicants with enrolled students. We help applicants select the right course/university, get application tips and anticipate their onboarding (accommodation, budget, etc.). Our platform involves a unique social dimension by letting students chat with their peers and get tailored answers to their most specific questions.

2. Where was it founded and where do you now have offices?
Founded and based in London.

3. Number of employees at peak (and now)?
We currently have a staff of four.

4. What was the hardest thing about building the company?
Our biggest challenge was to get the first schools to adopt our technology and open themselves to innovation. University applications having barely evolved in a long time, we had to convince schools – which are sometimes less open to change – that Unibudy actually improves the way students prepare for higher education while making life easier for their advisers!

5. Where do you see your company in three years?
Our goal is to become the reference network between high schools and universities. Covering most universities in the EU and the US in three years would therefore be awesome!

6. Do any other Ecolint alumni work with you?
Alumnus Raphaël Scheps (LGB '10) helped the team when launching our beta version. He is also the founder of Converge, a startup providing wireless sensors and data analysis tools for construction companies.

7. In what ways (if any!) did your Ecolint education help you in founding a company?
The large network of international students I built while at Ecolint proved very useful when starting Unibudy. At the very beginning, it helped us get feedback on our idea from students that had gone on to study in various countries and had therefore different mentalities, encountered different problems, etc. This helped us build a product that any student could relate to. While our platform is only active in the UK at the moment, I have no doubt this network will also help us implement Unibudy abroad when the time comes.